Doctoral study guide

Study information

Enrolment in Studies

Pursuant to Article 10(1) of the MU Study and Examination Regulations, a candidate admitted to a doctoral study programme becomes entitled to enrol in the study and to enrol in the first semester upon notification of the decision on admission to study. Enrolment must be made in person at the faculty implementing the programme within the time limit set by the faculty. An applicant becomes a student only when he/she is enrolled in studies. Therefore, if he/she fails to enrol within the time limit set in the timetable, or within the alternative time limit set, and fails to show compelling reasons for failure to enrol within five working days, his/her right to enrol shall cease.

Verification of the condition for admission to study of graduates from foreign education

Students planning to enrol in a degree program at Masaryk University in the Czech Republic, whose prior education was acquired in another country, will need to prove their education. Prior to enrolment, it is necessary to obtain the formal recognition of prior education in the Czech Republic. There are different ways to obtain verification of prior education/degrees:

General Nostrification - valid everywhere in the Czech Republic. PhD students can apply at the Rectors Office at Masaryk University - visit the website for instructions.
Verification at the Faculty of Law - valid only for studies at the Faculty Law at Masaryk University. The verification is free of charge. For questions regarding this process please contact Mrs. Věra Redrupová at vera.redrupova@law.muni.cz
Submit a foreign certificate of foreign higher education, which is equivalent in the Czech Republic according to its international obligations without further official procedure, in the form of an officially certified copy with an official translation into Czech or English.

Degree Recognition is only needed by students wishing to register at the Czech University for the entire degree programme, but not by visiting or exchange students. We strongly recommend that all degree applicants start to complete the verification (apostille/superlegalization) of their certificates/diplomas well in advance because it can be a lengthy process.

Information on the enrolment

At the enrolment, you must present:

a valid ID
documents to verify the prior education (see above; graduates of Czech universities other than the MU Faculty of Law must bring a certified copy of their diploma and diploma supplement).

You will be informed about the date of the enrolment one month prior to the date by email.

Information, Guidelines and Manuals

Rules and Regulations

Study plans

Course of Studies

Schedule of the doctoral study

PhD Committee

Library and electronic sources

Study stays and internships abroad

An important part of doctoral studies, which significantly develops both students and the university and the faculty, is the acquisition of international experience, especially in the form of foreign stays and internships. Foreign stays are therefore a strongly encouraged activity. For students from the academic year 2020/2021 onwards, a foreign internship is compulsory according to the conditions of accreditation for at least 1 month (within the International Internship or Visiting Study/Internship/Research course). In the case of full-time students in a continuous length, in the case of the combined form it may exceptionally be allowed to be divided into two parts.

As both the PhD students (and their employability) and the faculty find gaining international experience mutually beneficial, they actively participate in the preparation and implementation of the placement. The faculty also offers funding opportunities - primarily through projects, including specific research, but also in the form of scholarships. It is always advisable to apply for a scholarship at the destination as well (it is usually more generous there).

The student tries to make the most of his/her stay abroad for the benefit of the work on his/her dissertation and prepares for his/her trip in good time - he/she searches well in advance (even several years in advance) for possibilities, where to go, which person to approach as a consultant and how to finance the stay. In doing so, he/she is assisted by the supervisor, the supervisor of the study programme and, where appropriate, other persons with international experience who are approached by the student and the supervisor for this purpose. It is advisable to actively seek foreign contacts; it is possible to take advantage of those that already exist at the faculty, as well as to create and strengthen new ones, for example at foreign conferences, by participating in international projects, etc. It is also possible to take advantage of offers sent during the semesters by various institutions and published on the faculties' websites, on the MU IS Bulletin Board and on the MU Centre for International Cooperation website.

As far as the content of the placement is concerned, foreign (research) internships are particularly suitable. Purely "study" stays (as defined by ERASMUS+) are less common in PhD studies.

Before your departure you can contact Mgr. Vendula Strnadová from the Office for International Relations or Bc. Martina Augustinová from the Office for Doctoral Studies and Advanced Master's State Examinations with any questions.

It is also important that all stays, internships, and conferences must be recorded by the student using the application Recording of study stays in the IS (Personal Data -> Internships and stays). This is a prerequisite for credit. The above contact person will help with the registration if necessary.

A foreign placement, the content of which is work on the dissertation, is treated as a study stay and must be carried out on the basis of a Learning Agreement.

Instructions for foreign (research/work) placements

Instructions for study stays abroad

Instructions for conferences / short-period stays

Contacts

Directive of the Rector, No. 2/2024, Rules for the Recognition of Credit from Foreign Study and Occupational Stays by Students of Masaryk University (valid from 1 August 2024)

Methodological Directive of the Director of the Centre for International Cooperation 1/2024: Records of Study and Traineeships Abroad and annexes

Calls for papers, conferences, summer and winter schools, fellowships/working positions

Pan-European Seal Programme

Information on the partner universities of the Faculty of Law, MU (Czech only)

Scholarships

Psychological Counselling

Doctoral thesis

Requirements for the doctoral thesis

In the doctoral thesis, the student presents the results he/she has obtained during his/her studies in the doctoral programme. The thesis must contain original and published results or results accepted for publication.

Citations are regulated by the Dean's Directive No. 3/2020 - On document citations used in works submitted at the Faculty of Law, Masaryk University (as effective from 1 January 2021).

The requirements for the doctoral thesis are set out in Annex No. 1 of Dean's Directive No. 2/2021 On study in doctoral study programmes:

(1) The minimum extent of a doctoral thesis (hereinafter referred to as “thesis”) is 150 standard pages, i. e. 270,000 characters (including spaces and notes) of the text from the introduction to the conclusion incl. Other parts of the thesis are not included in the minimum extent of the work.
(2) The thesis includes a title page, an affidavit, an annotation with keywords, a content, the text itself and bibliography, in this particular order. Optionally, an acknowledgement and other parts may be included.
(3) The title page is placed on a separate page. The name of the faculty (‘Faculty of Law, Masaryk University’) and the study programme shall be placed at the top of the page. ‘Doctoral thesis’, its title and the author’s name shall be placed in the middle of the page. The year of the thesis submission shall be placed at the bottom of the page. If the thesis is submitted in a language other than Czech or Slovak, the prescribed information is given in English; if the thesis is submitted in a language other than Czech, Slovak or English, the title is also given in the language of the thesis.
(4) The affidavit is placed on a separate page. It has the following form (complemented by the type of work and title of the thesis) and the author’s signature: “Prohlašuji, že jsem disertační práci na téma [název disertační práce] zpracoval/a sám/sama. Veškeré prameny a zdroje informací, které jsem použil/a k sepsání této práce, byly citovány v poznámkách pod čarou a jsou uvedeny v seznamu použitých pramenů a literatury.” If the work is submitted in a language other than Czech or Slovak, the affidavit shall be in English in the following wording: „I hereby declare that I have prepared my doctoral thesis on the topic [title of thesis] by myself. All sources that I have used to write this thesis have been cited in the footnotes and are listed in the list of sources and literature.”
(5) Annotation including keywords is places on a separate page. There are two language versions of the annotation, the first one in the language of the doctoral thesis and the second one in English language. The usual extent of each of them is 500-600 characters including spaces, the usual number of keywords is 5-10 words. The text of both language versions must be identical with the text submitted in the electronic archive in the IS MU.
(6) Content is placed on a separate page. It comprises chapters and sub-chapters, optionally other structuring. Individual items are numbered and complemented with the page number indicating the beginning of the item.
(7) The text itself is as a rule structured into chapters, sub-chapters and sections. Arabic numerals are used for numbering. Individual levels are divided by a dot (1 Title of the chapter, 1.1 Title of the sub-chapter, 1.1.1 Title of the section). Introduction and Conclusion are not numbered. Each chapter starts on a new page.
(8) Bibliography is placed on a separate page or pages. It comprises an alphabetically ordered list of bibliographic entries, numbered in ascending order. All bibliographic entries of all literature used in writing the thesis must be listed (the criteria for ordering are firstly author’s surname, secondly year of publication). Optionally, a list of judgments and other sources, i.e. legislative acts may be included. Such list must be clearly separated from the bibliography.
(9) Paper size is A4, text colour is black. Starting with an affidavit, pages are numbered in ascending Arabic numerals. The first line of the paragraph (excluding the line immediately following the heading) shall be indented by a paragraph stop of appropriate length.
(10) The thesis is submitted electronically via IS MU in a text format allowing easy editing in commonly used text editors such as .doc or .docx format. Submission in hard copies is not required.

Programme-specific information on the reaquirements for the doctoral thesis:

Legal Theory and Public Affairs

Doctoral thesis proposal

Submission of the doctoral thesis and its defence

The candidate submits the application for the doctoral thesis defence (hereinafter referred to as the defence) to the Dean via the IS MU office within the time limit set by the academic year schedule. The prerequisites for submitting the application are

fulfilment of all the conditions of study as set out in Article 30 of the Study and Examination Rules (SER) of MU, and
previous successful completion of the State Doctoral Examination (SDE), or simultaneous submission of an application for the State Doctoral Examination (in which case the defence and the SDE take place on the same day).

Pursuant to Article 33(2) of the SER, the application for the doctoral thesis defence includes

1) the application itself (a fill-out form in the Document Office of the Information System),
2) an abstract of the doctoral thesis (see below),
3) a list of the applicant's published works and works accepted for publication (see below for requirements),
4) a professional CV.

The doctoral thesis is submitted only electronically in a text format that allows easy editing in commonly used text editors, such as .doc or .docx format, into the doctoral thesis archive in the IS MU. Submission in hard copies is not required.

The defence of the doctoral thesis will take place within one year of the submission of the application and at the latest before the expiry of the maximum period of study according to Article 29(4) of the CER. The date of the defence is proposed by the Doctoral Board and set by the Dean. The Dean shall also appoint at least two opponents of the dissertation on the proposal of the departmental board, whose opinions the student has the right to be informed of at least seven working days before the defence.

If the doctoral thesis is evaluated as "unsatisfactory", the student has the right to repeat the defence only once (the Dean, on the proposal of the Doctoral Board, sets the date of the repeat for the following two semesters at the latest and the doctoral thesis defence committee determines the conditions for the repeat within one month after the date of the unsuccessful defence). If the student fails to appear for the defence on the set date and does not acceptably excuse his/her absence within five working days after the date, the student shall be graded "unsatisfactory". The Dean may interrupt the student's studies (which do not count towards the total period of study) until the date of the re-defence.

Doctoral thesis abstract requirements

(1) The minimum extent of the doctoral thesis abstract (hereinafter referred to as ‘abstract’) is 10 standard pages (i.e. 18,000 characters including spaces and notes).

(2) The abstract concisely and succinctly explains:

- the topic of the thesis, research goals and methods used,

- summary of the content (especially of fundamental chapters),

- conclusions made by the author. The abstract must contain a content (outline) of the thesis and bibliography. The content and bibliography are not included in the minimal extent of the abstract.

(3) The abstract is worked out on a computer in a format recognized by the electronic archive in IS MU. Paper size is A4, text colour is black. Individual pages are numbered in ascending order with Arabic numerals. The first line of a paragraph (except the line immediately following the heading) is indented by a paragraph indent of appropriate length.

(4) The abstract is submitted electronically via IS MU. Submission in hard copies is not required.

Requirements for publication of original results

The doctoral thesis must contain original results, either already published or accepted for publication. This condition is fulfilled in one of the following two ways:

The entire dissertation, or rather the predominant part of it, has been published or accepted for publication.
The dissertation contains original results that have been published or accepted for publication in at least two peer-reviewed publications, such as a journal article (Jimp, Jsc and Jost), a monograph (B), a chapter in a monograph (C), or an article in a journal (D).

Doctoral state examination

General information on the doctoral state examination

The State Doctoral Examination is the culmination of the professional content part of the doctoral studies, in which it is verified whether the student has a deep understanding and overview of the studied field, not only in the narrow area of the research focus of the dissertation. The state doctoral examination precedes the defence of the doctoral thesis. The content of the State Doctoral Examination is determined by the Doctoral Board, including other conditions and prerequisites. A prerequisite for submitting an application for the State Doctoral Examination (hereinafter referred to as SDE) is, according to Article 32 of the Study and Examination Regulations of MU (hereinafter referred to as SER), the fulfilment of all the obligations set by the Doctoral Board.

Along with the application form, the student will also submit a doctoral thesis proposal (see above under Doctoral Thesis - Doctoral Thesis proposal). The student does not submit a thesis if he/she also submits an application for the doctoral thesis defence with the complete doctoral thesis as an attachment.

The applicant submits the application for the SDE via the IS MU within the period set by the academic year schedule. The date of the SDE is proposed by the Doctoral Board and set by the dean for the semester for which the applicant has submitted the application.

If a student fails the SDE, he/she may repeat it at most once (on a date set by the dean on the proposal of the Doctoral Board so that it takes place no later than by the end of the following semester). If the student fails to attend the SDE on the due date and does not acceptably excuse his/her absence within five working days after the due date, he/she is graded "unsatisfactory". The dean may interrupt the student's studies (which do not count towards the total period of study) until the date of the repeated SDE.

Programme-specific information on The State Doctoral Examination:

Comparative Constitutional Law

Comparative Corporate, Foundation and Trust Law